Guilty Pleasures: Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits

If you read comics in the 90’s there’s a few ads that are possibly engraved in your mind. Aliens Action Figures, Maximium Carnage the Video Game and the Saturday Morning Cartoon’s Greatest Hits album are all vivid memories.

Producer Ralph Sall fucking loves Cartoons. In the linear notes of this record he discusses his absolute love of the 60’s Saturday morning Television. With great Power comes great abilities I suppose because as Ralph Sall grew as a record producer he decided to use his connections to give us a 90’s Alternative Rock album packed with covers of these infamous TV show songs.

Cover albums are rarely respected records. More often than not they’re just something that we pick up for cheap out of curiousity and listen to once or twice. While bands like Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have perfected the art, most of the time when a band does a cover album it gets two listens and are quickly forgotten. Tribute Albums are rarely much different (this obviously doesn’t include Musicians Celebrate Jim Henson which will be released through Geekscape and Dollar Monday Promotions in the fall… but you didn’t read about that here).

Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits however is different. While it seemed pretty ignored (despite having an impressive collection of Alt-Rockers and Constant Advertisements in Comics), this CD has been in my CD rotation a decade and a half.

The album can almost be split in half between super faithful covers (Tra-La-La; Josie and the Pussycats; H.R PufNStuf) and bands doing their own thing with music (Happy Happy Joy Joy; Hong Kong Phooey; Underdog).

At the end of the day this record isn’t going to grow to have a cult following any time soon. Cartoon purists are going to be disappointed by it not sticking to the structure while Alternative fans aren’t going to feel the covers are different enough. Regardless of that I’ve always loved this record and always play it for friends, rarely do they love it the same way I do.

The album starts off with Tra-La-La as performed by Liz Phair and Material Issue, it sticks to the original structure and is in general a fun sing-along song, a drastic change from the next track. When Sponge decided to cover Speed Racer they really decided to let their Alternative/Grunge flag fly in the cover. Covers of Sugar Sugar (Mary Lou ord with SemiSonic), Scooby Doo (Matthew Sweet), Josie and the Pussycats (Juliana Hartfield & Tanya Donelly) and The Buggalos (Collective Soul) follow. The songs stick so closely with the original arrangements that they end up being ultimately forgettable.

However when Butthole Surfers tackle Underdog you know you’re about to hear something a little different. This is where the record gets interesting to me. Specifically When punk bands like The Ramones (Spiderman), Face to Face (Popeye the Sailor Man) and Wax (Happy Happy Joy Joy) pop in and completely turn 30 second theme songs into 2 minute anthems.

However the stand out tracks are found from Tripping Daisy (who’s lead singer later formed Polyphonic Spree) and Reverend Horton heat. The former covers The Sigmund and the Sea Monsters theme songs (including the Titular song as well as Friends) in a beautiful blend that just brings memories of summers past to the forefront of your mind.

Reverend Horton Heat also does a mash-up covering the instrumental Johnny Quest theme song. Heat’s fantastic guitar playing is given a chance to shine as he plays the bizarre theme song. Eventually the song transforms into the rock-a-billy sound that RHH is known for as they cover Stop That Pigeon.

If you love and miss Saturday Mornings spent in front of the TV, Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits WILL bring back some memories. If you spent your Saturdays switching between cartoons and MTV… this will DEFINITELY bring back some memories.